Mary Ward Breheny (born 6 March 1916), credited as Mary Ward, is an Australian actress, with a career spanning the latter half of the 20th century in radio, stage, television and film. Trained in Australia and England, Ward became one of the first female radio announcers at the ABC in Australia. She is perhaps best known for two notable roles in Australian television: garden loving inmate Jeanette "Mum" Brooks in the cult series Prisoner, and Dee Morrell in soap opera Sons and Daughters. In both roles, Ward played an elderly matriarch character.

Biography

Born to a pearler in Fremantle, Western Australia, Ward began acting professionally shortly after leaving high school and later studied at the Perth drama school. She also studied in England performing as a stage actress for several years before returning to Australia prior to World War II where she became one of the first female radio announcers for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation during the war. She returned to England for a time returning to the stage and, in 1948, acted in parts for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Moving back to Australia in the early-1950s, Ward made her first television appearance as a minor character in The Vise in 1954 and in the television movie The High-Flying Head the following year. She also had starring roles in the television movies Marriage Lines and The Tower, although she began television acting full-time in the mid-1970s with appearances on the television series Rush, Homicide and, as Aunt Marian Castle in Don Chaffey's Harness Fever with Andrew McFarlane, Robert Bettles and Tom Farley in 1977; this television movie would later appear as a two-part episode, Born to Ride, on Wonderful World of Disney in 1979. She also continued in the theatre with the Melbourne Theatre Company and remained with the company until 1983, when she performed in a David Williamson stage production.

Soon after, she appeared in one of her best known roles, "Mum" Brooks, on the popular soap opera Prisoner. She portrayed an elderly institutionalized inmate who was serving an eighteen-year prison sentence after being convicted of the euthanasia of her husband. When filming for the series was raised from one to two hours per week, she and Carol Burns decided to leave the series. However, her character remained a popular one during the show's early years and she made occasional appearances after leaving the show in 1980. She also starred with a number of her fellow Prisoner co-stars in the 1981 television movie I Can Jump Puddles as a character called Mrs. Birdsworth. Coincidentally, this was the surname of Sheila Florance's character Lizzie Birdsworth in Prisoner.

After guest appearances on The Young Doctors in 1982 and A Country Practice, she starred on Sons and Daughters as Dee Morrell during 1983. She also starred on the short-lived 1985 television series The Henderson Kids and its 1987 follow-up series The Henderson Kids II. During the late-1980s, she had supporting roles in the films Jenny Kissed Me and Backstage as well as appearing on Neighbours in 1988. After starring in the 1989 television movie Darlings of the Gods, she returned to the theatre and, in 1991, appeared in Alive and Kicking.

With an exception to an appearance in the television series The Damnation of Harvey McHugh in 1994, she remained absent from Australian television for a number of years. In 1998, she made an appearance in the film Amy and, between 1999 and 2000, played recurring character Betty Withers in the police drama Blue Heelers.